Comments on: Are You Creating A Product That Nobody Needs?

By: Home Business Answered » AWESOME Photos From The Web 2.0 Venture Forum

Home Business Answered » AWESOME Photos From The Web 2.0 Venture Forum — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 06:18:47 +0000

[...] The business model is ad-supported. I didn’t see the value in this and it strikes me as solving a problem that doesn’t exist. A better solution to this already exists: set up auto forwarding of your old accounts to your [...]

By: AWESOME Photos From The Web 2.0 Venture Forum

AWESOME Photos From The Web 2.0 Venture Forum — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 23:25:07 +0000

By: Home Business Answered » How To Analyze A New Business Idea

Home Business Answered » How To Analyze A New Business Idea — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 08:40:07 +0000

[...] it solve a real problem or am I fixing something that isn’t [...]

By: How To Analyze A New Business Idea

How To Analyze A New Business Idea — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 07:37:32 +0000

[...] it solve a real problem or am I fixing something that isn’t [...]

By: Brian Armstrong

Brian Armstrong — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 06:40:38 +0000

Good tip I’d forgotten about that thanks Matt.

By: Matt Thomas

Matt Thomas — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 19:49:48 +0000

Another useful too is Google Trends: http://www.google.com/trends. It accomplishes something very similar but also indicates any seasonality or growing popularity over a given keyword.

This was sort of mentioned, but some other huge desires are beauty and weight loss. I guess these kind of fall into the relationships/sex/health category but these are also very good examples of burning desire needs.

Thanks for another helpful post, Brian!

By: Brian Armstrong

Brian Armstrong — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 19:03:58 +0000

Hi Andy, yep I was surprised on a few as well. For example “homework help” is far more popular than tutoring related keywords. “home based business” and “home business” are far more popular than “how to start a business” etc.

By: Brian Armstrong

Brian Armstrong — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 19:03:12 +0000

Hi Caleb,

Yep…I see what you’re saying although I tend to still go for markets that are big with lots of competition. That just reassures me that people are out there spending money on it. If I think I can be a little better than whatever else is out there, this is better than picking a niche where no one spends money.

Regarding your name grayed out, it looks like a link was not provided on your first post this month. Hmm…I went in an added it but the top commentators list didn’t update. It may update overnight, if not…definitely on December 1st. Sorry about that!
Brian

By: Andy @ Retire at 40

Andy @ Retire at 40 — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 13:20:48 +0000

I recently found that keywords tool and was really interested to figure out what keywords people were using. I just tried a number of variations of a few different phrases and was interested in the results – not always what I thought it would be.

By: caleb

caleb — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 08:57:26 +0000

What about the effects of competition?

Instead of competing with the big guys in an industry they already dominate, why not pick a more obscure niche where you dominate by virtue of being the only competitor?

Unfortunately, it’s hard to find an obscure niche that satisfies peoples’ “desperate needs”.

Mathematically, you should be dividing the 2.74 million back pain searchers by the number of back-pain products, and compare that ratio with the 1.4 million searches for tutors divided by the number of tutor services.

I think the tutor niche would win, even though there is probably a lot more people lying awake at night worried about back-pain than there are worrying about finding tutors.

The beauty of Google is it puts even obscure niches in front of a massive target audience.

Side note: why is my name gray on the commentator list?